Agree 100% with this idea. We have been around Envato for about 4 years now and in that space of time have bought numerous things from the market place… The culture in which ThemeForest has created is that customers EXPECT free updates. Especially if you have been using a Theme and getting updates for free for a year a more. This is not something you can change overnight but I’m sure the added incentive to developers will increase the quality of produce found on the market place. Benefiting the everyone, the buyers included.

Agreed. Unfortunately it would be way too easy for folks to ‘game’ the system. Constantly putting out ‘updates’ that contain features or compatibility fixes that could have all been done at the same time. Or not updating because they have an issue with the pay scale or (perceived) importance. And who is going to police/manage what is right and what is not right, as far as best and acceptable practices for the customers is concerned. And how is the value of the updates figured? How about the fact that a customer purchases a theme and expects it to function for their website not knowing that their data (and their customers) could be at risk if an author decides not to release an update because they don’t feel it was worth the time but cannot contact the customer directly to let them know? I think we all agree that dev time is money and that the brilliant minds creating files across all the marketplaces here should be properly compensated, but really, this would be a simple thing to take advantage of for those with less scruples. Not to mention that a lot of needs and wants are subjective when it comes to updates versus enhancements. In the end, a theme is a different subject entirely than apps. All this said, I look forward to a day when creatives like all of us Envato authors, and the work we do for our customers, are understood and appreciated on a level we can all be happy with – including compensation.

Ontopic: Most updates I make are for bugfixes or tweaks, and these updates should remain free of charge. If it’s about enhancing the theme’s functionality, well yes, why not being paid… but I don’t see much sense in it anyways, just create a whole new theme since updated items will stay lost in the depths of the item sea.(unless we get that funny bug again where items are pulled to the front page once they’re updated)

Personally, I feel that many people buy themes and plugins because they know that they will receive upgrades.

I found my sales went up once I started to create updates, or was forced to create updates due to Facebook changing things all the time. If somebody buys my item, then they have the security of knowing that it will still be working in a year’s time.

On a personal level, if I’m going to have to pay over and over to use something, I’ll just look elsewhere.